Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the member's point of order.
She said that this bill has to have a common, unifying theme, and it does. It is a budget implementation bill and that common, unifying theme is to implement the budget, as one might expect. That is the economic action plan 2012, the jobs, growth and long-term prosperity act. She says that for the bill to be found in order, it has to arise from a single policy decision. She acknowledges that it does, that being the decision of the budget that was tabled in this House. She then says that another alternative is for it to have direction from Parliament. This budget was approved by Parliament, so there is indeed direction from this Parliament to proceed with this budget. On all three of those tests she has outlined, Bill C-38 is certainly in order. Of course, it is entirely consistent with clearly established parliamentary practice. We have had previous bills of greater length and of equal diversity that implemented budgets adopted by this House and found in order.
The member makes an effort to identify some items that were not included in the budget. However, in her effort to do so, she actually makes the case that they do all arise out of the budget.
First, she has objections to some of the measures on streamlining environmental assessment processes. In fact, the budget goes on for pages about streamlining environmental assessment processes, about the importance of responsible resource development. However, in her arguments she went on to advance that her objection is that every single word that appears in the final Bill C-38, all the details of how that has been done, were not in the budget. That is not what the budget has to do. The budget sets the clear policy direction and the budget implementation bill implements that direction. That is exactly what is happening and that is as it should be. That is how these two legislative devices are to work together.
The member says that the regulatory system changes go well beyond what was contemplated. That is not the case. In fact, the budget makes it quite clear what regulatory system changes are contemplated, and that the objective is to go to one project, one review. So again, her objections there seem to have no basis.
To use another example, the member said that there is no basis for the provisions in the budget bill that relate to shiprider, the program for joint law enforcement at the border on waterways and on lands, between Canadian and American border officers and police forces so they can act on both sides so people can be pursued across that border. That was part of the Canada–U.S. border action plan, the perimeter security action plan, that was enunciated by the leaders of the two countries in December 2011. It is addressed specifically again in the budget at quite some length. It says in the budget that the government intends to take measures to implement the action plan commitments and other border improvements. Again, this is set out in the budget. With item by item that she has gone through, she has actually made the case for the fact that this bill does proceed to implement the budget and is properly in order.
The member then objects to a series of measures to balance the budget. Nothing could be more core to our economic action plan than the commitment to balance the budget by 2015, so all those measures are in order. That is what even the most basic and simple budget is all about. I do not see anything that provides a basis for the arguments the member has attempted to advance here.
Then she proceeded to make a series of arguments that could be best described as debate, disagreeing with the merits of various aspects of the bill. That may be fine for a debate. It is a good reason, if she wishes, to vote against the bill. However, it is certainly not a reason to declare that the bill is not in order.
At first glance, there is absolutely nothing, not one single basis for legitimacy for requests the member has made that the bill be found not in order. That being said, since her arguments were quite extensive and did go on for well over a half-hour, I will return with more detail on them, item by item.